Blocks made of cemententious material are well known. These blocks are made using pre-cast moulds. Such blocks can be used as building blocks, retaining wall blocks and the like.
There is a demand for such blocks with a used or worn and torn look giving one the impression that they have been cut from stone. Hence, blocks which have had their surface texture modified, such as having irregular edges or having being chipped, marked, scratched, abraded have become popular with consumers.
Conventional apparatuses are known as block tumblers. Blocks are placed in the tumbler and tumbled causing them to randomly scratch and chip each other in order to give them a “natural” or “used up” allure consumers are looking for.
A drawback with the conventional procedures and apparatuses for modifying the surface texture of blocks is that too much material is lost during the tumbling or chipping process making it an expensive process when considering material.